New Products (September 01, 2003)

MOLDMAKING GROUPS JOIN FORCES

It’s official. The Canadian Association of Moldmakers (CAMM), the Canadian Tooling & Machining Association (CTMA) and the Canadian Pattern-Modelmakers Association (CPMA) have signed on the dotted line and officially formed the Canadian Machine, Tool, Die and Mould Federation (Canadian MTDM Federation).

Together, under the Canadian MTDM Federation, the founding associations have more than 400 member companies nationwide and represent the majority of Canada’s $3.4 billion manufacturing output by this sector.

The Canadian Plastics Industry Association — Mold Makers Council (CPIA) has also signed a memorandum of understanding to join the Federation.

Member associations will fund the Federation but CAMM, CTMA and CPMA will continue to operate as individual associations.

PRE-APPRENTICE PROGRAM FOR METALWORKING WINS AWARD

A program organized by the Canadian Tooling and Machining Association to direct students into the precision metal working trades will receive honors from the Yves Landry Foundation later this year.

The Foundation’s awards recognize individuals and businesses that exemplify the vision of the late Yves Landry, former chairman, president and CEO of Chrysler Canada. Landry strongly believed in forging links between business, education and government, and promoting technical education and skills training.

The CTMA program, called Molding Youth for Industry, is a joint venture with Human Resources Development Canada. The pre-apprenticeship training program provides 20 weeks of classroom/machine shop instruction, followed by 20 weeks of industrial work experience. After the 40-week program, successful students may be registered as apprentices in a related field.

CTMA president Les Payne will accept the award at a ceremony in November.

ATS Automation Tooling Systems Inc. of Cambridge, ON, also received an award from the Foundation as Company of the Year. ATS develops automation systems and produces high-tech plastic assemblies. ATS started an apprenticeship training program in 1981, and has continued to hire and train apprentices. Since 1998, 142 apprentices have trained at the company’s facilities in Cambridge.

MELT ROTATION ARRIVES IN HOT RUNNERS

Incoe Corp. and Beaumont Technologies have collaborated to produce the first hot runner to incorporate Beaumont’s MeltFlipper melt rotation technology. The Opti-Flo design developed by the two firms provides homogenous melt distribution and balanced filling across all cavities while avoiding invasive and restrictive mixers.

The Opti-Flo system also replaces the practice of creating melt temperature variations in the drops to balance cavity filling. The result is improved product consistency and quality.

Beaumont engineers have concluded that the main root cause of flow imbalances in conventional hot runner designs is the same shear-induced variation that MeltFlipper technology addresses in cold runner molds.

Incoe Corp. 248-616-0220; Beaumont Technologies Inc. 814-899-6390

IN-MOLD DEVICES REDUCE LABOR, PREVENT DAMAGE

Aiming to increase molders’ productivity, Profine Molds has developed patent-pending technologies that can reduce mold maintenance and labor costs. The moldmaker now offers an in-mold closing mechanism for caps and an auto protection device to prevent mold damage.

The in-mold closing mechanism closes any type of flip top cap while still inside the mold. The mechanism is designed to pick up the lid on any position and flip it to close and snap. It can be powered by pneumatics, hydraulics or an electrical motor. In-mold closing may decrease manual labor costs or decrease costs of a fully automated handling system.

Profine has also developed an auto protection safety mechanism on a compact slide. The purpose is to prevent potential damage to the tool while keeping the machine completely functional. A switch is activated if the closing mechanism or compact slide mechanism jams in the mold due to lack of lubrication or improper maintenance procedures. This simple safety mechanism is based on compression and decompression of the spring, activating the micro-switch when necessary to stop the machine.

Profine designs and manufactures molds for pharmaceutical, medical, cosmetics and personal care, consumer products, automotive and industrial markets.

Profine Molds 905-795-8856

CAVITY PLATES WITH FINISHED POCKET

Pre-pocketed metric cavity plates are now available from Hasco. The KR25 plates are supplied with a standard finished pocket, ready for cavity and core inserts. The plates are available in eleven standard sizes from 246 mm x 246 mm to 396 mm x 496 mm, in different thicknesses and three types of steel.

They have the same outside dimensions and tolerances as Hasco K20 plates, plus the pockets are sized so that Hasco P-plates can be used for cavity inserts.

Hasco America 416-293-5044

LIFTER SYSTEM DOUBLES THE UNDERCUT

An innovative lifter system allows designers to incorporate undercuts that are twice as deep as previously possible. The VectorForm lifter system was developed by Takao Injection Mold Engineering and will be distributed by D-M-E.

VectorForm could also allow mold designers to cut the ejector stroke in half while maintaining existing undercut geometries.

The VectorForm system uses a slide base concept. With the lifter rod being actuated from a sliding base rather than a static base in the ejector plate, the lifter angle can be considerably more aggressive. VectorForm can accommodate angles of 30 degrees or more.

Modular design allows for ganging of multiple lifter systems to accommodate very large lifter cores. This could reduce design time and maintenance costs for molds with large lifter cores, states D-M-E, because until now, pre-engineered systems were not suitable for large lifter cores.

As well, VectorForm allows multiple lifter cores to be joined on a single lifter system. In this situation, a part with multiple undercuts in the same line of draw no longer needs a separate lifter system for each undercut. Molds for cell phones and other small enclosures and housings may benefit from space savings within the mold using this technology.

D-M-E of Canada Ltd. 800-387-4651

TIME-SAVING LINK BETWEEN CAD AND MOLD ANALYSIS

Moldflow has released Moldflow Design Link (MDL) 4.0, a geometry data translation interface between Moldflow’s range of simulation products and leading CAD systems using standard file formats such as IGES, STEP, Parasolid, PTC’s Pro/Engineer and now Dassault Systemes’ CATIA V5 part files.

MDL 4.0 can be used to import CAD model geometry directly into Moldflow’s part and mold design optimization solutions, decreasing the amount of time needed to prepare models for analysis.

Moldflow Corp. 508-358-5848